hollow places
by alluran
Summary: Keith had left the base camp to pitch his shack up in the middle of a nowhere desert that had nothing to offer but the nasty leftover grit of sand in Lance's mouth. Thankfully, months or days or hours in the desert with old professors pursuing them through the cliff sides and dunes looks the same on everyone.
1. Chapter 1

**disclaimer:** I do not own VLD.

 **a/n:** set in Lance's POV, circa episode one, so he pronouns for Pidge.

* * *

He doesn't care.

He adamantly _does not_ care.

In fact, he's angrily staring out the window of Keith's freaky control center for conspiracy theories and watching as that stupid mullet walks up to Shiro because he _doesn't_.

At all.

Care.

It wasn't on Lance that Keith couldn't cut it at the Garrison and dropped out of pilot class because of it. That point was made abundantly clear when he took over as leader of the Save Shiro mission, they had the rivalry and then, Keith was Splitsville so Lance was bumped from cargo pilot to major leagues piloting and it was _great._

It wasn't on him that Keith had left the base camp to pitch his shack up in the middle of a nowhere desert that had nothing to offer but the nasty leftover grit of sand in his mouth.

And maybe he does kind of feel for the mopey loser, clearly the only person he could deem important enough for words was prisoner on an alien slave ship for a year, had his name dragged through the dirt for a failed mission gunked over in a seriously crappy coverup story, and more-or-less pronounced dead.

There were plenty of times he, Pidge, and Hunk needed breaks from each other to do their own things for a bit (mostly because he learned Pidge and Hunk were the worst wing men. _Ever_.), but they always came back around to hang a few hours or, at the most, a day later. It was hard to imagine going through his day without his teams' quirky nuances or rambling chatter.

Now that Lance thinks about it, he had never been around an extended period of peace and quiet and where clearly Keith liked to wallow in angst-ridden silences. To each his own.

He can't recall a time where siblings weren't shoving him around or stugging his pant legs for his attention. Doesn't know what it's like not to have his mom sing along to the radio and have enough breath for the chorus and a windy lecture about how he's not pulling his weight and she could think of at least twenty things for him to be doing other than lounging around with his headphones on with the volume up too loud for him to hear her speaking to him. But he doesn't mind it so much.

The weird, hallow tension permeating the wood panels of the wall is eating at him. There's not one damn thing in the place to suggest that a teenager with one helluva knack for flying lives here and not some cantankerous old guy that hates literally everything and would shuffle bitterly after you swinging a cane to get off his lawn.

Keith was an insufferable ass and he didn't care.

"Why do you have that weird look on your face?"

Pidge's sudden appearance at his side startles him enough that he flinches, his arms flying up to hit the corner of the window he'd been standing by. He catches Shiro and Kieth begin to turn toward the house and Lance quickly shoves himself and Pidge out of sight.

"What's the matter with you, dude?! You don't just sneak up on people and ask stuff like that. It's rude!"

Pidge tips his head up at him innocently and mutters, "But you-"

Lance shoves his hands into his pockets and stomps his way toward the kitchen. "And I did _not_ have a weird look on my face."

Because he doesn't care.

He _adamantly_ doesn't care.

* * *

 **a/n:** originally posted to my tumblr: alluran.


	2. crawl space

**disclaimer:** I do not own VLD.

 **a/n:** set during episode one, so pre-relationship.

* * *

Dust hangs in the air.

In his clothes.

Between the pages of his books.

Weighs on his tongue until it's curling low and deep into his lungs until he feel like he can't stand up all the way.

His glove smears it over the table when he tries to clear a spot to eat. The grit is something awful, but he swallows past it - adamantly not thinking about government issue meals slapped together on lunch trays that had long since paled. He reminded himself of the jokes - that everything from the mystery meat to the fruits and vegetables were a sham would probably rot out their insides before graduation. Definitely doesn't waste his time on the asinine commissary system he'd managed to keep filled enough for the stray bag of chips or soda.

He groans and scratches the back of his head, and the damn stuff catches in his fingernails when he tries to shake it out of his hair. The inside lining of his boots a constant shift of dust and sand crunched in the soles and woven between the bare threads of his socks any time he stood.

The old bandana nothing but a grimy scrap of paisley.

It's not the first time he's had to adjust to a new definition for _getting by_ and it won't be his last - yet hunkers down and weathers out one day after the next. The stray thought of the wind and sand eroding him away until there was nothing else to take. The walls of the shack would fall in with the gust and the hours upon hours upon hours upon hours he spent mapping and studying and tracing and documenting taken away somewhere far out from the garrison.

He's tired.

He'll probably just become the notorious dropout case that was sorted into some sort of ridiculous tall tale that would paint his superiors as the senior officers that Tried Their Best.

It's written plain as day on Lance's face when they crash through the front door. The sharp look of an outsider that can't fathom or understand someone living in this amount squalor. Drifting from one dust mote to another in the small living area, he ignores it. It's usually easy to ignore it. Hunk (he'd heard Lance squawk the big guy's name enough) none-too-gently claps him on his shoulder and offers to get him a glass of water for that cough and when he turns back from a rusted spigot that had gone bone dry a day or two ago, looking at Keith with empty eyes. Well, that one's new for him, but he shrugs it off and clears his throat.

It's not all that difficult to get lost in the shuffle when Shiro's waking up with a full glass of water just out of reach.

But never the look he sees passing over the faces of their small friend (Pidge?) with the glasses or Shiro's. There's a seed of alliance in their hatred for the hallowed halls of the Galaxy Garrison and a familiar tilt in the chin when the world's taken the best parts of you, then takes more than you have to give, and maybe - if you're lucky - you'll still have a few pieces to put back together and keep going another day.

The first one's always the hardest, but not undo-able.

Beyond the haze of confusion and pain and panic, anger lights his mentor's eyes; it makes the long scar jutting across his nose harsher and the white hair hanging over his brow brings out the stony glint in his eye. Shiro spits the name of the craggy commanding officer like acid.

They are two looks he cannot hide from, can't deny because there's dust in everything, in him, and it marks him on a radar he never wanted to fly on anyways.

* * *

Thankfully, months or days or hours in the desert with old professors pursuing them through the cliff sides and dunes looks the same on everyone when Coran leads them to the showers with more pomp and circumstance than needed. Dust lines the pockets of his jeans just like it's spilling over in all of the pockets of Hunk's shorts. Lance complains about it getting everywhere and how it will take _'literal years'_ to wash all of it away.

He's just glad to be off the ground, out of that crawling space.

* * *

 **a/n:** originally posted to my tumblr: alluran. I plan on getting out a wicked extensive oneshot on klance in the future!


End file.
